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Emma
by Jane Austen
VOLUME I
CHAPTER III
Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very
much to have his friends come and see him; and from various united
causes, from his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature,
from his fortune, his house, and his daughter, he could command
the visits of his own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked.
He had not much intercourse with any families beyond that circle;
his horror of late hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit
for any acquaintance but such as would visit him on his own terms.
Fortunately for him, Highbury, including Randalls in the same parish,
and Donwell Abbey in the parish adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley,
comprehended many such. Not unfrequently, through Emma's persuasion,
he had some of the chosen and the best to dine with him: but evening
parties were what he preferred; and, unless he fancied himself at
any time unequal to company, there was scarcely an evening in the
week in which Emma could not make up a card-table for him.
Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley;
and by Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the
privilege of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude
for the elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse's drawing-room,
and the smiles of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being
thrown away.
After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom
were Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost
always at the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were
fetched and carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it
no hardship for either James or the horses. Had it taken place only
once a year, it would have been a grievance.
Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very
old lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived
with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered
with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under
such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a
most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome,
rich, nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament
in the world for having much of the public favour; and she had no
intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten
those who might hate her into outward respect. She had never boasted
either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction,
and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother,
and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible.
And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without
good-will. It was her own universal good-will and contented temper
which worked such wonders. She loved every body, was interested
in every body's happiness, quicksighted to every body's merits;
thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with blessings
in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours and friends,
and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and cheerfulness
of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation
to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was a great
talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse,
full of trivial communications and harmless gossip.
Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or
an establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences
of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant
morality, upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies
for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but
a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable
quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and
where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves
into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies.
Mrs. Goddard's school was in high repute--and very deservedly; for
Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample
house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let
them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dressed
their chilblains with her own hands. It was no wonder that a train
of twenty young couple now walked after her to church. She was a
plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her youth,
and now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a
tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr. Woodhouse's kindness,
felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour, hung
round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose a few
sixpences by his fireside.
These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able
to collect; and happy was she, for her father's sake, in the power;
though, as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for
the absence of Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father
look comfortable, and very much pleased with herself for contriving
things so well; but the quiet prosings of three such women made
her feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long
evenings she had fearfully anticipated.
As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close
of the present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting,
in most respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with
her; a most welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen,
whom Emma knew very well by sight, and had long felt an interest
in, on account of her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned,
and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion.
Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had
placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard's school, and somebody
had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder.
This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no
visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and was
now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young
ladies who had been at chool there with her.
She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a
sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and
fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features,
and a look of great sweetness, and, before the end of the evening,
Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite
determined to continue the acquaintance.
She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's
conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not inconveniently
shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing, shewing
so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful
for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the
appearance of every thing in so perior a style to what she had been
used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement.
Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those
natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of
Highbury and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed
were unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted,
though very good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were
a family of the name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character,
as renting a large farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish
of Donwell--very creditably, she believed--she knew Mr. Knightley
thought highly of them--but they must be coarse and unpolished,
and very unfit to be the intimates of a girl who wanted only a little
more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect. She would notice
her; she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad acquaintance,
and introduce her into good society; she would form her opinions
and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a very
kind undertaking; highly becoming her own situation in life, her
leisure, and powers.
She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and
listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that
the evening flew away at a very unusual rate; and the supper-table,
which always closed such parties, and for which she had been used
to sit and watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved
forwards to the fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond
the common impulse of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to
the credit of doing every thing well and attentively, with the real
good-will of a mind delighted with its own ideas, did she then do
all the honours of the meal, and help and recommend the minced chicken
and scalloped oysters, with an urgency which she knew would be acceptable
to the early hours and civil scruples of their guests.
Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouses feelings were in sad warfare.
He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion
of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome
made him rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and while his
hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his
care for their health made him grieve that they would eat.
Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that
he could, with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might
constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the
nicer things, to say:
"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these
eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands
boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg
boiledby any body else; but you need not be afraid, they are very
small, you see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates,
let Emma help you to a little bit of tart--a very little bit. Ours
are all apple-tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves
here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to
half a glass of wine? A small half-glass, put into a tumbler of
water? I do not think it could disagree with you."
Emma allowed her father to talk--but supplied her visitors in a
much more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular
pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith
was quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a
personage in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had
given as much panic as pleasure; but the humble, grateful little
girl went off with highly gratified feelings, delighted with the
affability with which Miss Woodhouse had treated her all the evening,
and actually shaken hands with her at last!
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